A Case for Change: The application transformation proclamation

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Today’s IT leaders facing application transformation are feeling in over their head. Why? Market conditions are changing rapidly, making it hard for the application portfolio to keep up.  Without a sound app strategy backed by executive leadership, there is a widening gap between business strategy and app strategy, creating a snowball effect of complexity.

In a recent trip to Boston to visit the Forrester Research headquarters, my colleague (pictured, below) and I had the opportunity to speak with Research Director Chris Andrews, on the topic.  

Keeping Pace

“Change is so hard to track, because it happens so incrementally," says Chris. 

chowder

Trip to Boston topped off w/ "world's best" clam chowder
And isn’t that the truth. You see yourself in the mirror every day, without observing much change; however, a look back at a photo of yourself from 2009 might produce a more [potentially alarming,] profound conclusion. The same is true for businesses in nearly every industry today.  "You look back five or seven years, and you see some pretty significant changes," citing cloud, social and analytics. 

In order to keep up with the pace of change, Chris advises business leaders to track specific events that take place both within the organization and externally as a foundation for establishing the business strategy.  The leaders will be those that can nimbly adapt to a combination of the internal and external triggers.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

In the Forrester Research report. Measure The Business Impact of Improved App Strategy, VP and Principal Analyst Paul D. Hamerman, argues that, when faced with compelling business reasons to invest in new apps, or to upgrade your current apps, firms often procrastinate, and take no action. This auto-pilot mode, so-to-speak, can be disastrous.

Referring to the term technical debt, Hamerman says, “Firms often find they have to pay dearly over many years for failing to fix app issues when they first arise….[and in] extreme cases the corrosion of the apps is so severe that the firm is unable to meet the needs of its business.”

In our meeting with Chris, he recalled a quote from one of his clients: “There is a cost to doing nothing.” 

There’s more…

Thinking about new app investments? Need to get all stakeholders on board to make an application transformation 'proclamation?' For a more in-depth look at Forrester’s market analysis and recommendations in the quest to put an app strategy that aligns with the business, check out a complimentary copy of the full report, Measure The Business Impact of Improved App Strategy. 

Get complimentary Forrester Report: Measure the Business Impact of Improved Application Strategy